By Aditya Raj Das
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday chaired the meeting of the 43rd edition of PRAGATI involving Centre and State governments.
PRAGATI is the ICT-based multi-modal platform for Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation. He reviewed eight key projects spread across seven states having cumulative worth around 31 thousand crore rupees. Among these, four projects were concerned with water supply and irrigation, two projects for expanding National highways and connectivity, and two projects for rail and metro rail connectivity. These are Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Odisha, West Bengal, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
The Prime Minister has emphasised that PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan Portal in conjunction with technologies such as satellite imagery can help address various issues of implementation and planning relating to location and land requirements for projects. He also instructed that all the stakeholders executing projects in high population-density urban areas may appoint nodal officers and form teams for better coordination.
For irrigation projects, the Prime Minister advised that visits of stakeholders be organised where successful Rehabilitation and Reconstruction work has been done. He said, the transformational impact of such projects may also be shown as this may motivate the stakeholders for the early execution of projects.
During the interaction, the Prime Minister also reviewed ‘Mobile Towers and 4G Coverage under USOF Projects’. Under the Universal service obligation fund, USOF, 33 thousand 573 villages with 24 thousand 149 mobile towers are to be covered for saturation of mobile connectivity. The Prime Minister asked to ensure setting up of mobile towers in all uncovered villages within this financial year with regular meetings with all stakeholders. This will ensure saturation of mobile coverage in the remotest of the areas. As many as 348 projects having a total cost of over 17 lakh crore rupees have been reviewed so far under the PRAGATI meetings.